LandMark Bank of Florida Closed By Regulators

LandMark Bank of Sarasota, Florida, became the nation’s 57th banking failure as Florida regulators closed the troubled bank. The FDIC, acting as receiver, sold the failed bank to American Momentum Bank of Tampa, Florida.

LandMark Bank, founded in 2000, was one of the largest independent community banks in Sarasota County with six branches and $275 million of assets. In the first quarter of the year, the Bank lost $7.8 million and capital ratios fell far below the minimums required by regulators. Bank management attempted to raise capital from various private investors but was ultimately unsuccessful.

LandMark Bank experienced a steady increase in nonperforming loans since late 2010 as Florida property values continued to decline. Unable to raise additional capital as required by regulators, the insolvent Bank was closed.

LandMark Bank

American Momentum Bank will assume all deposits and purchase essentially all assets of LandMark Bank. American Momentum Bank also purchased a second failed Florida bank today, Southshore Community Bank.

As discussed in the post on the failure of Southshore Community, American Momentum Bank was founded in 2006 with $100 million of private investor capital.

American Momentum Bank was founded by wealthy Texas businessman Don Adam who ran privately held First American Bank of Texas before selling it to Citigroup for $750 million in 2005. Don Adam’s timing of the sale of First American Bank was very well timed, coming shortly before the financial crisis that collapsed the value of virtually every bank in America. Equally well timed was Mr. Adam’s re-entry into banking to buy failed banks at bargain prices from the FDIC.

The failure of LandMark Bank will cost the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund $34.4 million. LandMark is the nation’s 57th banking failure and the ninth in Florida. Georgia is first in banking failures with a total of 16 failed banks to date.